Post navigation

How to choose proper Tires

For full size micromouse, Mini-z is likely the choice for tire for its availability on the market and its size. Due to the limit of width for a typical mouse design in order to get through the diagonal, the width of the wheels are also limited. Hence, the most used width for tire is 8.5mm.

Mini-z is one series of racing car from Koyosho, and there are variaous of models of tires available.

There are pretty much 3 type of width and 2 type of thickness.

For width, there are 8.5mm 9.5mm and 11mm where 8.5mm is for front wheel, 11mm is for rear wheel and 9.5 mm is for something in the middle.

For thickness, there are 2 types where one type will give extra 4.5-5mm thickness if on rim and the other type gives 6.5-7mm extra diameter thickness for rim

The one I chose this time for my new mouse is 9.5mm wide and extra 4.5-5 thickness 20degree type. Basically the number for degree is smaller, the softer the wheel is and and the better capability for the grip on the floor. On the other hand, the softer the tire, the faster it burns down.

The actual model I purchased was mini-z 25-20 on ebay. Since I want to use wider tire than 8.5mm to slightly increase the friction between mouse and the floor. Because I
also wanted the maintain 75mm overall width for my mouse, so there isn’t too much extra space to make the rim being wide enough to fit 11mm wide tire. After all, I made my decision on only use 9.5mm tire.

I received my new 25-20 tire before I had my new mouse assembled, so I made a test on my Green Giant V2.2 mouse. Since the tire I was using for it is 30 degree tire, which is harder than 20 degree, I ended up having better performance for both deceleration and turn after I put the 20 degree tires on. As a result, the Green Giant V2.2 mouse can turn at 0.9m/s much more stable than before at a 80mm turning diameter for search.

After I had my new Green Giant V4.1 Lite mouse assembled, it becomes pretty obvious that the mouse can search and do speed run much better than my old mouse, and I believe it was mostly contributed from the 20 degree tires.
If you are still waffling between 20 degree 30 degree tires from mini-z for you micromuse, I highly recommend for you to get 20 degree to max the capability to achieve a faster and stabler run.

10 thoughts on “How to choose proper Tires”

You can get 10 or even 5 degree mini Z tyres but they are so soft that if the maze is not completely clean they pick up dust during searching so by the time you do your fast fun you are driving on balls of fluff!

is there any 10 or 5 degree mini-z tire existed? I only know some third party 10 degree tire. My friend has some super soft third party tires and I tried with my mouse and turned out it was totally a disaster. The tire was over deformed and it didn’t run as stable as 20 degree tire. I guess that’s why 20 degree tire is so popular.

I am looking for wheels that have an outer diameter between 20-22 mm (including the tire). However, I am not sure which models (if any) fit that size. It seems the image on the PDF you shared is a bit blurry and can’t see the diameter information of the wheels.

Do you know which wheel models would fit that size?

PS: Ideally they would also have an inner diameter wide enough to fit some bearings (i.e.: 6 mm). ^^

in fact, you don’t have that many choices.
you can use either MZW2-20 or MZT301-20 for a 22mm diameter wheel.
inner diameters are big enough for your desired ball bearings for these tires.
I’ve updated latest PDF for mini-z category above.

In the new PDF I can clearly see the outer diameter of the wheel+tire. Sadly, it seems the smallest diameter is 23.5 mm (for wheel size LMF). Am I right? Or do the MZW2-20 or MZT301-20 models actually have a tire with an external diameter of 22 mm?

peter use 2-20 tire for a small tire with relatively loose contact
I use 14.5mm diameter rim to make the wheel at 22mm with 301-20 tire.
either way works, you’d better buy tires first and try on the rim since the thickness reduces after expansion.